Jamaica Gleaner : London terror suspect has regional links

London terror suspect has regional links

September 2, 2006

KINGSTON, St Vincent (CMC): A 28-year-old man of Vincentian parentage is among the 13 persons charged in London in connection with last month's foiled plot to blow up close to a dozen transatlantic jets over the Atlantic Ocean.

Umar Islam, formerly Brian Oliver Young, was born in Britain to Vincentian parents who migrated to the United Kingdom in the early 1960s.

Brian, now Umar, is said to have changed his Christian name some three years ago while following the teachings of Islam and he later married a Muslim woman with whom he fathered a child.

Ticket inspector

He was employed as a ticket inspector for the London transportation system at the time of his arrest for his alleged connection to the terror plot.

His family origin traces him and his parents back to the fishing town of Layou, on the north western side of St. Vincent where a number of relatives still reside.

One relative, a 77-year-old man, expressed disappointment over the alleged connection to the incident.

"I feel like I am out this world to know a 'fella' you are related to have found himself in such a plot. Everywhere you go in the world people would be looking at you," he told the Caribbean Media Corporation (CMC).

According to the relative "the whole thing about it is it's a stain to know your family member has planned such a disastrous thing".

Umar joins a list of at least four young men of West Indian origin arrested in connection to a number of terrorist activities in the United States, Canada and Britain.

In June of last year, Jamaican-born Jermaine Lindsey was labelled as the central figure in a wave of bombings which hit the London transport system killing 54 persons.

While in June this year a 23-year-old Vincentian-Canadian and a 21-year-old Trinidadian-Canadian were reportedly among 17 people busted for allegedly planning a terrorist attack on Canada.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police reported, then, that Jahmaal James, of Scarborough, Ontario, the son of a Vincentian man who emigrated from St. Vincent almost 30 years ago, and Ahmad Mustafa Ghany, 21, the son a medical doctor who emigrated from Trinidad and Tobago in 1955 was assisting them with investigations into the incident.